


Light on the path

by feralphoenix



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-18
Updated: 2012-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-08 00:52:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/pseuds/feralphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The lady of high verse on intercultural aesthetics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light on the path

**Author's Note:**

> _(all my life I’ve been a stranger to myself_ – nine painted ladies)

She grew up on the records of so many ancient worlds, and so she knows: The one point upon which all the old legends agree is that angels are hideous, fearsome creatures. Wheels of wings, flaming eyes, terrible to behold. The hands that paradox space utilizes to usher in the undoing. Even the most warlike of species would tremble at the ancient memory, the sickness in the fabric of creation.

But people, as a whole, don’t like ugly things. She grew up on the records of so many ancient worlds. She’s seen old digital images of what humans like to call cherubs, fat little infant humans with feathery wings too small to support logical flight.

It’s normal, she thinks, to paint over things that are inconvenient.

She makes a face for herself, sometimes, a soft putty one to wear when she’s dressing up. It’s just pretend, she says and smiles to herself. It’s only for fun. But the harder she tries to imagine what it must feel like, to have a full face of flesh like a troll or a human, the more she feels like there’s a high wall in between her and Jane and Roxy.

She has been on Prospit for as long as she can remember, and has had access to a vast wealth of literature about everything. Even though sometimes it hurts, she loves to find things out. To know everything, and hold the knowledge like little droplets of treasure in her heart. Her brother has his obsession with games, and for her it’s this: Fitting together all the pieces of the grand puzzle, turning possibilities over and over like a human kaleidoscope.

It’s fascinating—unbelievably so—to picture the ways that social species must have interacted. Imagining what it might be like, to live in terms of love and not hate, or to quarter them both off and cherish them equally. Red. It used to be a color tied up with frustrations and even fear, once; now it’s like a jewel, always sparkling in the back of her mind.

She grew up on the records of so many ancient worlds, and so she’s heard that the dreamself is a perfect recreation of one’s self-concept.

And so every time she falls asleep, she does so holding her breath, hoping that this time—that this time, she will wake on the other side with her stupid wish come true.

Like a story for wigglers: The spell broken, the princess woken from her long sleep, made beautiful as she was born to be.

(But that’s the point of fairytales, isn’t it, that they never happen in real life.)


End file.
